We see the market for online reports maturing in terms of vendors, tools and interactive options. Within HTML reports, interactivity stays the main driver. There are still huge regional differences and ignorance in terms of what is an online report. Whether an investment into a fully-fledged online report makes sense or not, largely depends on a companies communication mix. But I am convinced that we will see a further rise in online reporting, as the decline of print runs will continue to shift interest into online. And mobile devices like iPads will play an increase role.

In the next few days we will publish this years research on the state of online corporate reporting. Beforehand I would like to use this Blog to highlight one of the most interesting findings of the work, that we did on searching through corporate reporting websistes of 508 big cap companies in North America and Europe.

Being one of the early adopters of HTML for annual reporting, companies listed in the Dow 30 lost track with what media is best to use online. We saw years where image based picture shows (JPG), PDF and HTML reports where taking about the same portion of the cake. Now the tide seems has turned in favour of HTML conversions of financial documents. Although the USA still lacks behind other markets like the UK or Germany you might think: better late than never. But there is an important downer of this developement.

In the past four years the market for HTML online Annual Reports in the Netherlands was one of the most dynamic in the world. While in 2006 almost half of all companies of the AEX/AMX-index offered their reports as automatically converted picture shows (JPG), since two years this leading position has been taken over by reports that are converted into real HTML websites. The amount of reports that are offered just as PDF remained steady in the last years at a portion of around on third.

Germany is historically one of the most important countries in our benchmark analysis. So we were a bit disappointed to see that the slight reversal trend back to PDF and JPG continued. Comparing this year´s data with the one of 2007 shows that especially companies which used to provide PDF only changed their way of reporting and offer their report as a JPG show now. In 2007 25% of all DAX reports were PDF only, this year there are 18,8% left whereas the stake of JPG shows rose from 15% back up to 26,3%. Another very interesting fact is that the count of companies offering an HTML version is nearly steady [43 in 2009, 42 in 2010], whereas the stake of Hybrid-reports [included in HTML in the graph below] fell from 6,3 % to 2,5%. This means that JPG shows win especially at the cost of PDF and Hybrid reports.

The trend towards HTML reporting is still strong within UK’s FTSE-100 companies. Since the UK Companies Act paved the way the share of companies choosing this form of presentation had increased significantly from 37% in 2007 to now a dominant 67% in 2010. With this level the United Kingdom clearly stands out on an international level.

Another country we decided to include in this years Nexxar Benchmark Analysis is Canada. So far the only companies from North America we more closely looked at have been the 30 Dow components. Starting coverage of Canadian TSX-60 companies not only widens once again our geografic focus, it also brings in the big global players of the ressources industry, which we consider – in current economic circumstances – as an important long-term move.

Company profile: nexxar has devoted itself entirely to the topic of digital reporting. This is unique, across the world. Since 2003 the Viennese company has published more than 500 reports on the web – primarily online annual reports and online sustainabilty reports.